Sophocles Quotes | GloryQuotes

Sophocles Quotes About Wisdom

If you were to offer a thirsty man all wisdom, you would not please him more than if you gave him a drink.

A wise doctor does not mutter incantations over a sore that needs the knife.

A wise man does not chatter with one whose mind is sick.

Much wisdom often goes with fewest words.

Our happiness depends on wisdom all the way.

Wisdom is the supreme part of happiness.

A short saying often contains much wisdom.

Wisdom outweighs any wealth.

Sophocles Quotes About Life

It was my care to make my life illustrious not by words more than by deeds.

Those whose life is long still strive for gain, and for all mortals all things take second place to money.

One word frees us of all the weight and pain in life. That word is love.

He who throws away a friend is as bad as he who throws away his life.

Children are the anchors of a mother's life.

There is an ancient saying among men that you cannot thoroughly understand the life of mortals before the man has died, then only can you call it good or bad.

Not knowing anything is the sweetest life.

More Quotes by Sophocles

Whoever neglects the arts when he is young has lost the past and is dead to the future.

For those whose wit becomes the mother of villainy, those it educates to be evil in all things.

Do not grieve yourself too much for those you hate, nor yet forget them utterly.

One who knows how to show and to accept kindness will be a friend better than any possession.

For the wretched one night is like a thousand; for someone faring well death is just one more night.

How dreadful knowledge of the truth can be when there's no help in the truth.

Whoever understands how to do a kindness when he fares well would be a friend better than any possession.

There is some pleasure even in words, when they bring forgetfulness of present miseries.

The keenest sorrow is to recognize ourselves as the sole cause of all our adversities.

How sweet for those faring badly to forget their misfortunes even for a short time.

Bear up, my child, bear up; Zeus who oversees and directs all things is still mighty in heaven.

Time alone reveals the just man; but you might discern a bad man in a single day.

Alas, how quickly the gratitude owed to the dead flows off, how quick to be proved a deceiver.

Hush! Check those words. Do not cure ill with ill and make your pain still heavier than it is.

If you have done terrible things, you must endure terrible things; for thus the sacred light of injustice shines bright.

When a man has lost all happiness, he's not alive. Call him a breathing corpse.

There is no sense in crying over spilt milk. Why bewail what is done and cannot be recalled?

Whoever thinks his friend more important than his country, I rate him nowhere.

To give birth is a fearsome thing; there is no hating the child one has borne even when injured by it.

A word does not frighten the man who, in acting, feels no fear.

Men may know many things by seeing; but no prophet can see before the event, nor what end waits for him.

Whoever thinks that he alone has speech, or possesses speech or mind above others, when unfolded such men are seen to be empty.

Men should pledge themselves to nothing; for reflection makes a liar of their resolution.

Men of ill judgment ignore the good that lies within their hands, till they have lost it.

I see the state of all of us who live, nothing more than phantoms or a weightless shadow.

For death is not the worst, but when one wants to die and is not able even to have that.

War never takes a wicked man by chance, the good man always.

Ignorant men don't know what good they hold in their hands until they've flung it away.

A soul that is kind and intends justice discovers more than any sophist.

What house, bloated with luxury, ever became prosperous without a woman's excellence?

All is disgust when a man leaves his own nature and does what is unfit.

There is no witness so terrible and no accuser so powerful as conscience which dwells within us.

There is no greater evil for men than the constraint of fortune.

There are some who praise a man free from disease; to me no man who is poor seems free from disease but to be constantly sick.

It is the merit of a general to impart good news, and to conceal the truth.

All a man's affairs become diseased when he wishes to cure evils by evils.

Now I see that going out into the testing ground of men it is the tongue and not the deed that wins the day.

But this is a true saying among men: the gifts of enemies are no gifts and profitless.

I would rather miss the mark acting well than win the day acting basely.

It is the task of a good man to help those in misfortune.

Not even old age knows how to love death.

Whoever gets up and comes to grips with Love like a boxer is a fool.

Reverence does not die with mortals, nor does it perish whether they live or die.

Whoever grows angry amid troubles applies a drug worse than the disease and is a physician unskilled about misfortunes.

Whoever lives among many evils just as I, how can dying not be a source of gain?

Man is not constituted to take pleasure in the same things always.

Hide nothing, for time, which sees all and hears all, exposes all.

I see that all of us who live are nothing but images or insubstantial shadow.

Browse 140 quotes attributed to Sophocles, listed in the source data as a Greek Poet, organized around themes such as Wisdom, Life, Time. Use the topic links to explore similar quotes, or browse the full author collection in one place.